Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a document processing device and a communication control method therefor. Specifically, the document processing device includes a touchscreen type operation panel and is configured to be capable of communicating with a terminal device, e.g., a ring-shaped wearable terminal. A position of the terminal device is likely to move in accordance with operation by a user for the operation panel.
Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a document processing device such as a copy machine and a multi-functional peripheral (MFP) is used in an office or the like for processing document data (image data) that are input from a personal computer or the like or read and input by a scanner.
Such a document processing device typically includes a touchscreen type operation panel. A user operates an operation key or the like displayed on a screen of the operation panel using various gestures, whereby operation of the document processing device can be controlled.
Examples of a technique for transferring data that need to be processed to a processing device include techniques described in JP 2005-135316 A, JP 2004-247875 A, and JP 2010-148029 A.
Specifically, JP 2005-135316 A discloses that an image file photographed and obtained by a digital camera is transferred to a personal computer by e-mail. In this technique, the number of files attached to the e-mail is changed in accordance with communication intensity.
JP 2004-247875 A discloses that when video data are packetized and transferred in digital video signal wireless transmission, an unsuccessfully transmitted packet is accumulated, and an output code amount is reduced when the accumulated packet exceeds a reference value.
JP 2010-148029 A discloses that when a state of data transfer from a transmission terminal is bad, data are received from a nearby supporting terminal in which data that are the same as the data transmitted by the transmission terminal are stored.
In recent years, wearable terminals that can be worn and carried by users have been provided to the market. There are various types of wearable terminals such as, for example, a ring-shaped wearable terminal, a bracelet-shaped wearable terminal, or an eyeglasses-shaped wearable terminal. Since the wearable terminal is a kind of computer, the wearable terminal can store various data and transfer the data to other devices as necessary.
One possible way to utilize this feature of the wearable terminal is to cause the wearable terminal to store document data, transfer the document data to a document processing device by means of a radio wave, and print the document data. In this case, in order to prevent unnecessary communication, a communication range between the wearable terminal and the document processing device needs to be narrowed. However, since a position of the wearable terminal is likely to move in accordance with operation by a user for an operation panel, communication might be interrupted by a movement of the user's hand during the operation. When the communication is interrupted, the data transfer needs to be performed all over again from the beginning, resulting in a reduction in working efficiency.
In a case where the number of attached files is changed in accordance with communication intensity in the same way as JP 2005-135316 A described above, even if the wearable terminal is located at a position where the communication intensity is large at a certain moment, a possibility of interruption of the communication might become large when the wearable device is moved to another position by a movement of the user and the communication intensity rapidly becomes small.
In a case where an output code amount is reduced when an accumulated packet exceeds a reference value in the same way as JP 2004-247875 A, it takes time to accumulate the packet to a certain level or more, during which unsuccessful transmission continues to occur and a lot of time and packets are wasted.
If data are received from a supporting terminal in the same way as JP 2010-148029 A, the supporting terminal needs to be prepared, which requires a significant cost.